Flutterby™! From 2021-08-01 to 2021-08-31

The prosecutors who framed him and let a murderer go free should serve that time. He spent 34 years in prison. Evidence on file for decades exonerated him last month.

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the CIU, told The Washington Post that Crosland’s case had a telltale sign of a wrongful conviction: It was weak from the beginning.

...

The investigation unearthed many relevant documents that Crosland’s defense was not privy to, the CIU said, and found the prosecution’s nondisclosure of critical information violated Crosland’s constitutional rights.

[ related topics: Law Civil Liberties ]

The existence of tactical flashlights implies strategic, logistical, and diplomatic flashlights.

Dear Facebook: If you're gonna lock my account and complain about spam every time I try to give something away in the local "free stuff" group or provide attribution to a tweet, we may have to part ways.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Spam Monty Python ]

Just put our Petaluma square dancing group back on hiatus. Enough people concerned about the latest Sars-CoV-2 variants, even outside, and several of those still willing to dance decided that dancing masked wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Xi Jinping only wants the most devoted Chinese Communist Party members. His tough membership rules could backfire

How ‘Gateway Pundit’ Used Vaccine And Election Misinformation To Earn $1.1 Million In Google Ad Revenue

Daily Dot: Exclusive: Ex-Cambridge Analytica psychologist secretly aided prominent anti-COVID vaccine group — Leaked chat logs detail efforts to influence elected leaders.

The chat records, provided to the Daily Dot by the activist collective DDoSecrets, detail efforts by HART (Health Advisory and Recovery Team), a self-described “group of highly qualified UK doctors, scientists, economists, psychologists and other academic experts,” to influence politicians on issues related to COVID-19.

The leak, as first reported by Logically on Tuesday, involves tens of thousands of chat messages stretching back to January before the group’s official launch. Held over the messaging platform Rocket.Chat, the communications highlight a stark contrast between HART’s public attempts to portray itself professionally and some of its members’ conspiratorial views.

[ related topics: Health Space & Astronomy Artificial Intelligence Conspiracy Economics Aviation - Helicopters ]

Enough About FOSTA's 'Unintended Consequences'; They Were Always Intended

Just to provide a few examples, there’s a law review article about FOSTA called “good intentions and unintended consequences.” Or you could look at the 2018 OC Register article called “The Unintended Consequences of a Well Meaning Anti-Sex-Trafficking Law” (complete with cliche sexy legs 🙄). Even Elizabeth Warren, in the announcement for the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act, said “As lawmakers, we are responsible for examining unintended consequences of all legislation, and that includes any impact SESTA-FOSTA may have had on the ability of sex workers to protect themselves from physical or financial abuse.”

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Bay Area Journalism and Media Douglas Adams Real Estate ]

"We've traced the call, and it's coming from inside the house": Jihadists flood pro-Trump social network with propaganda

GETTR, the new platform started by members of the former president’s inner circle, is awash with beheading videos and extremist content.

[ related topics: broadband Invention and Design Current Events Journalism and Media Real Estate ]

3 people hit by iceberg at Titanic exhibit in Tennessee

The ship-shaped museum closed after the collapse but reopened for those with tickets on Tuesday, according to a post. The owners said the affected area has been blocked off, and they estimate it will take at least four weeks for the iceberg wall to be rebuilt.

[ related topics: Current Events Art & Culture Chattanooga Machinery ]

You'll know I'm a militant bicyclist when I use a deadly weapon to start killing other road users. Oh, wait. It's not bicyclists doing that. Nevermind.

[ related topics: Guns ]

Nice. Asshole in a jacked up truck just yelled "get off the road" at me while I was crossing D Street in the 4th St crosswalk while accelerating hard enough that he could get close enough for me to hear him.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

Went into the office this morning, I was the only one there, so come lunchtime I grabbed my extra monitor and came back home. Looks like we're back to isolatin' ag'in. With 406 new cases reported today Sonoma County's over 23/100k/day, 7 day average.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Absolutely amazing Twitter thread about actors and guest stars on Miami Vice.

I know the theory of intarsia, but I've never sat down and tried to figure out the right angle to compensate for my scroll saw kerf, or tried to rip the assembly into a book match. Until tonight.

[ related topics: Books Photography Woodworking ]

Divergent: The emerging research on the connection between trans identities and neurodivergence

“Framing noncompliance as pathology is a long-standing strategy for enforcing the status quo,” Walker says. “The noncompliant can then be robbed of freedom, abused or interfered with in all manner of ways, in the name of ‘treatment.’ If you want an idea of how far back this strategy goes and how potentially oppressive it is, look up drapetomania sometime.”

Ferris State University — Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia discusses drapetomania

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Civil Liberties Government ]

Interesting little AskMeFi thread about Amazon A/B testing, people getting different product images and $45 vs $36 price for the same URL.

[ related topics: Books Skating ]

Philadelphia cops tow cars from legal parking spots to illegal parking spots, then impound them and sell them at auction: ‘Borderline illegal’: Courtesy tows remain Philly’s persistent parking nightmare

The next day, he called the parking authority, hoping to clear up the misunderstanding. A woman there said his car had apparently been “courtesy towed” from Camac to Lombard because while he was gone, his original parking space had been declared a temporary no-parking zone, reasons unknown.

“I had never heard of a ‘courtesy tow,’” said Isaacs, 61, who runs a small nonprofit that fights homelessness. “It sounds like a generous thing to do. Except they towed it to a place where it was illegal to park. And then they ticketed it, and impounded it, and put it up for auction.”

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Law Current Events Law Enforcement Automobiles ]

I think it's important to note that Google and Facebook &c. created the ecosystem in which spreading misinfo is so profitable. You used to have to mail mimeographs and get actual subscribers and deposit the checks yourself...

GamerGaters inundated her with death threats. Now some are apologizing — and she forgives them.

“I’m not talking to a monster, I’m talking to someone that is under-socialized and lonely and is looking for respect, which I think is something all of us as humans understand,” she said. “It was such a lightbulb moment, that these aren’t people I should be angry with as much as people I should try to have empathy for.”

Toward the end of 2015, she said, a woman reached out to her to talk over Skype. The woman broke down in tears on the call as she apologized for harassing Wu, the game developer recalled, saying her life was terrible at the time and she was trying to “fit in with the boys.” So Wu forgave her. And she saw relief cross the woman’s face.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Religion Games Woodworking ]

🎶I was walkin' along, mindin' my business, when out of an orange-colored sky...🎶 well, at least the smoke is way up high so we can't smell it right now.

Look at all of those contacts popping up on @SignalApp today. Wonder if this has something to do with Apple's announcement about scanning your message attachments?

[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama ]

S.F. restaurant's $72 fried rice was a runaway hit. It was also the chef's nightmare:

Lily started serving the crab fried rice around Christmas of 2020, two months after it opened, and it was supposed to be a two-week item, Lam admitted — a gimmick for the holidays. “The premise was, let’s do something so over-the-top and bougie,” he said. “We called it the #1 douchebag fried rice.” (On the menu, it was the much more politically correct #1 Dac Biet Fried Rice, with “dac biet” meaning “the works” or “special” in Vietnamese.) He expected that most people would see it and chuckle at the gall, then order the pho. They’d probably only sell three a night, if that.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Food Bay Area ]

Pondering the difference between "privateer" and police officer in the age of civil asset forfeiture.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

Just traded in the BMW i3 for a Chevy Bolt.

[ related topics: Photography Automobiles Fabrication ]

Our stove is so friendly!

[ related topics: Photography ]

Taste Of Marrakesh at Grand Central Petaluma. Wonderful evening on the river, wonderful food from Zest Cuisine, spectacular wines from Bee Hunter, chocolates from Ecuador (with cardamom, OMG!), watching the swallows hunt, and a heron or two...

[ related topics: Photography Food ]

I clicked through, turns out Google News is using stale headlines or something, because both stories say the Dixie Fire is now the second largest (behind the August Complex Fire) in California history.

[ related topics: Photography Current Events California Culture Pyrotechnics ]

Sorry for the extreme blast of screen-grabbed text, but I thought the juxtaposition of Uber surveilling employees inside the home and Apple assuring us that they'd push back on surveillance requests important...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

Ted Lasso, but for hockey.

(Ted Lasso for Ultimate would just be Ultimate.)

[ related topics: Sports ]

It's 2021. Why do we still have web sites that break auto-fill, and why does my phone need to go bing when I update my payment information from the web site? I'm right there. I know I made changes. Calling out @EVgoNetwork this morning.

Interesting Twitter thread about recovering a stolen scooter using Apple Airtags.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Apple Computer ]

Physicists Detect Strongest Evidence Yet of Matter Generated by Collisions of Light

Now, physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory say they've found a way around this stumbling block using the facility's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) - resulting in a direct observation of the Breit-Wheeler process in action.

"In their paper, Breit and Wheeler already realized this is almost impossible to do," said physicist Zhangbu Xu of Brookhaven Lab.

Physical Review Letters: Measurement of e+e− Momentum and Angular Distributions from Linearly Polarized Photon Collisions

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.052302

[ related topics: Current Events ]

I might have already linked this, but it bears a re-reading: Reverse Engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine

The Genetic Code and Proteins of the Other Covid-19 Vaccines

[ related topics: Open Source ]

When your A/B testing ends up going to the same person. Immediately *after* I sent his campaign another $25. I mean, we've gotta stop this recall, but 👀

[ related topics: Photography ]

Nothing like a couple of fire seasons and a pandemic and repacking the emergency kit in the new car to drive home that CERT class was largely survivalist cosplay.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Automobiles Pyrotechnics ]

AdorkaStock.com stock reference photography for artists and drawing reference poses.

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture Economics ]

"Thought is the enemy of flow." Vinnie Colaiuta as reported by Rick Beato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BgXCDuqZvM

[ related topics: Movies ]

In the "what unconscious technology driven tics do I have?" category: Just realized I do a head-toss to make sure that the sound is coming from the headphones/ear-buds and not from the direction of the phone/computer.

Back to sweatpants for my work-from-home attire. I think that signals something.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

Making integrated circuits at home: Sam Zeloof: Second IC. His previous IC was a “Z1” PMOS dual differential amplifier chip:

The Z1 had 6 transistors and was a great test chip to develop all the processes and equipment. The Z2 has 100 transistors on a 10µm polysilicon gate process – same technology as Intel’s first processor. My chip is a simple 10×10 array of transistors to test, characterize, and tweak the process but this is a huge step closer to more advanced DIY computer chips. The Intel 4004 has 2,200 transistors and I’ve now made 1,200 on the same piece of silicon.

Via https://mobile.twitter.com/szeloof/status/1426320038072659971

Thinking about square dance community in this context:

"No one goes to a show cynically ... people stream songs cynically, people will listen to things cynically, or watch things, but nobody goes to a show cynically, so you have taken out [pause] It's church, you know, you have put a bunch of people in a room, the work means a lot to you and a lot to them, you've come together to celebrate it and keep growing it."

Jack Antonoff in Switched On Pop

[ related topics: Religion Movies Work, productivity and environment Community ]

Today smile someone mad you ha\

[ related topics: Photography ]

Finally rented a concrete saw and finished up the cap blocks on the back patio

[ related topics: Photography Woodworking ]

Just realized that I'm so old I remember when 3d TV was gonna be the next huge thing...

[ related topics: Technology and Culture Graphics Television ]

Taken a couple of passes at refinement, the first version was PVC and the axle warped, but trying to build a roll-up screen door, with internal retraction spring

[ related topics: Photography ]

New axle is galvanized steel pipe, HDPE mounts.

[ related topics: Photography Cool Science Invention and Design ]

New rule: The US doesn't go trying to wrest control of other countries from corrupt authoritarian theocrats until we figure out how to do it to our own.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Aaargh. Apple's WkWebView appears to have a rounding error which is causing an underlying layer to bleed half a pixel through the border between two divs. Sometimes.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Graphics ]

The best thing about the new Lizzo track is the difference between the subtitles and the sung lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9XUrniiK4

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design ]

How a Board Game About Birds Became a Surprise Blockbuster — Elizabeth Hargrave’s Wingspan is transforming an $11 billion industry. And it’ll transform the way you think about games.

[ related topics: Games Sociology California Culture Birds ]

Not smelling smoke at ground level, but it's clearly up there.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Wow: The customer is actually gonna be the customer? Samsung confirms it’s removing ads from its stock apps later this year — Including its Weather, Pay, and Theme apps

[ related topics: Economics ]

Apple announced that they're root through your iPhone photos looking for "child sexual abuse material" (CSAM). Everyone with any knowledge at all about how this shit goes down rolled their eyes and said "oh hell no". Apple said "no, really, this will use hashes of the image identification, it's not like we're actually looking through your photos!"

Everyone with any knowledge at all about how this shit goes down rolled their eyes and said "that's even worse."

Sure enough, there are now working hash collisions.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Photography Erotic Sexual Culture Work, productivity and environment Databases iPhone ]

Fantastic look at finding patterns of fraud in data: Data Colada: [98] Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About Dishonesty

We have worked on enough fraud cases in the last decade to know that scientific fraud is more common than is convenient to believe, and that it does not happen only on the periphery of science. Addressing the problem of scientific fraud should not be left to a few anonymous (and fed up and frightened) whistleblowers and some (fed up and frightened) bloggers to root out. The consequences of fraud are experienced collectively, so eliminating it should be a collective endeavor. What can everyone do?

[ related topics: Aviation - Helicopters ]

Why is Facebook deliberately going out of its way to show me anti-masker material from people I don't follow? Is this the algorithm that thrives on outrage seeing that people engage more with this stuff, and therefore pushing it harder?

Charlene is listening to a self-improvement recording of some sort that's using wood/water/elemental sorts of metaphors, and one of the speakers just talked about "finding your wood", and... well... I managed that, now what?

[ related topics: Pop Culture Woodworking ]

The American Prospect: The Whitewashing of the Afghan War

Sara Chayes: The Ides of August

National Security Archive: Afghanistan 20/20: The 20-Year War in 20 Documents (makes Donald Rumsfeld look more sympathetic, interestingly). Via https://mobile.twitter.com/NSArchive/status/1428408754178084866

[ related topics: Books History ]

Arnold Schwarzenegger loses corporate sponsor of bodybuilding event for 'dangerous, anti-American' comment

In a controversial interview, Schwarzenegger had a message for those arguing that "freedom" is more important than wearing masks amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"People should know there is a virus here. It kills people, and the only way we prevent it is to get vaccinated, wear masks, do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just to think about, ‘Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here,'" the "Terminator" franchise star, 74, said.

"No, screw your freedom, because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. We cannot just say, ‘I have the right to do X, Y and Z.’ When you infect other people, that is when it gets serious," he added, publicly admonishing those who aren’t subscribing to the practice of masking up and getting the shot."

As Elf Sternberg observed:

Stupidity is so American that when you attack stupidity people think you're attacking America.

[ related topics: Privacy virus tolkien Space & Astronomy Civil Liberties Aviation - Helicopters Government ]

Police leave disabled Colorado woman with nearly $1,600 toll bill after using her stolen license plate

A 52-year-old Westminster woman with back problems faces $1,592.72 in E-470 toll charges because the president of the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, who also headed the narcotics unit of the Longmont Police Department, used a stolen license plate that comes back as registered to her.

Holy crap. Dude snuck 'em from the evidence room to put 'em on an unmarked truck.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Machinery Handicaps & Disabilities ]

I have interacted with a lot of authors of very specific genres that are paranormal-romance adjacent, so I don't know if I've met Cassie Alexander, but her name seems slightly familiar. I suspect that I've run across her in the mentions or comments of one of the other authors I've followed or interacted with, but I wasn't super familiar with her work. But she's Bay Area, and when I saw some tweets pushing Year of the Nurse: A 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir, I dived on it.

Damn was that a difficult read, but worth it. It's a good reminder of why I'm still wearing the mask, limiting my social contacts, and trying to be at least a little cautious. It meshes with the stories I've been told by other friends who've worked in healthcare over the past year and a half, and with my one experience going into a hospital in the last year, with the ad-hoc negative-pressure region hastily constructed.

If you need a reminder about why we're still careful and not out of the woods yet, or a good look at what medical care under pressure looks like, or the cognitive dissonance of trying to remain on speaking terms with people who are denying your lived experience, this one's worth a read.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama History Work, productivity and environment California Culture Woodworking ]

Costa Ricans Live Longer Than Us. What’s the Secret?

Life expectancy tends to track national income closely. Costa Rica has emerged as an exception. Searching a newer section of the cemetery that afternoon, I found only one grave for a child. Across all age cohorts, the country’s increase in health has far outpaced its increase in wealth. Although Costa Rica’s per-capita income is a sixth that of the United States—and its per-capita health-care costs are a fraction of ours—life expectancy there is approaching eighty-one years. In the United States, life expectancy peaked at just under seventy-nine years, in 2014, and has declined since.

[ related topics: Health Theater & Plays ]

Aigh! Charlene's Mac seems to be moving files around on her. Maybe some sort of iCloud weirdness? At any rate, it's disconcerting enough UX that I could see getting her back onto Linux, where such things are deterministic.

[ related topics: Free Software Open Source Macintosh ]

Sutro Images: lots of shipwrecks around San Francisco's Sutro Baths and the Cliff House

[ related topics: Bay Area California Culture Real Estate ]

I know that celery soda is used as a running gag on @UnwellPodcast, but this celery cucumber lime agua fresca is pretty tasty

[ related topics: Photography Sports ]

Mila Jam - It's Raining Them (Official Music Video)

[ related topics: Music Movies Video ]

DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - GOD MODE UNLOCKED Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86 (YouTube video). Fascinating talk on reverse engineering a RISC processor that sits along side the x86 interpreter in what looks to be a Via C3 processor family of some sort, and that can act outside of the x86 permissions model.

Via The Boston Diaries

[ related topics: Religion Movies Sociology Video ]

How it started (history of the Temperance movement), how it's going (the art of fermentation).

[ related topics: Photography Art & Culture ]

Written for sex workers, but useful for everyone: How to Protect Yourself When Speaking to Press, Part 1 and Part 2

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Once again, The Onion speaks truth: OnlyFans CEO Admits Decision To Ban Pornography Was Made In Shame-Filled Moment After Orgasm

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Food ]

Wow, human perception is weird: there is only an 8.5" width difference between the narrowest and widest of these vehicles.

[ related topics: Photography ]

I believe the future of social media will be in some decentralized peer to peer system. The problem is that I really don't wanna talk to anyone who's into crypt*currencies (asterisked to keep the keyword seekers out), and the overlap is huge...

[ related topics: Privacy Journalism and Media ]

Hiding Images in Plain Sight: The Physics of Magic Windows, in which a guy uses caustics and a bunch of optical calculations to use a CNC router to mill a piece of acrylic to make a clear piece that one can see through (with some waviness), but that projects a cat picture when light is shone through it.

Via MeFi.

Source code for the height field generator is at https://github.com/MattFerraro/causticsEngineering

[ related topics: Microsoft Open Source Clowns Woodworking ]

Reading this I was struck by the cyberpunk/"street finds its own uses for technology" of it all: Technology Review: The Taliban, not the West, won Afghanistan’s technological war

The US-led coalition had more firepower, more equipment, and more money. But it was the Taliban that gained most from technological progress.

Via https://news.slashdot.org/stor...n-afghanistans-technological-war

[ related topics: History Current Events Currency Gambling ]

My first impression was "oh fuck, what sort of idiot thinks that machine learning is the right solution here?", but as I read deeper I'm kinda intrigued: Having a 'bad trip'? There's an app for that.

... in the days after the trip, she also felt curious about what had happened to her and the ways she had changed. And she felt lonely.

Now she’s helping other people who are dealing with those same feelings as a volunteer for Fireside Project, a new free psychedelic peer support service that launched a support line in April. Fireside is currently sponsored financially by the SocialGood fund, a non-profits incubator, and is in the process of becoming a non-profit. In August, it launched an app that it claims is the "world’s first" of its kind.

Hat tip to https://researchbuzz.me/

[ related topics: Invention and Design moron Travel Education ]

Clamoring for ivermectin, some turn to a pro-Trump telemedicine website. How the "America's Front Line Doctors" scam to sell ivermectin got out of control and has people raiding veterinary supplies.

Via https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1431040456364810242

[ related topics: moron Current Events ]

Always sit in the back of the class: Outbreak Associated with SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant in an Elementary School — Marin County, California, May–June 2021

[ related topics: Children and growing up Bay Area California Culture ]

It's naked lady season!

[ related topics: Nudity ]

So last year, a 10 year old musician with a YouTube following from the UK challenged Dave Grohl to a drum-off.

• Dave accepted the challenge.
• Nandi upped the game
• Nandi meets Dave via Zoom
• Dave concedes and Nandi gloats

On Thursday, in a big-ass stadium show, Dave brought Nandi Bushell up to play with the Foo Fighters to close out the show. If you can't get enough of this, the video shot from back stage where you can hear her father whooping it up is cool. And if you still can't get enough, this video shot from the crowd is cool for the different vibes from the audience.

Edit: Another video from low, down near the stage, with lots of her facial expression

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Games Movies Video ]

Good to see that the egrets are back after the lightning strikes.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Lots of conspicuous consumption in the turning basin

[ related topics: Photography ]

Sitting here imagining what this looked like back in the days of the Golden Eagle Mill

[ related topics: Photography Dan & Charlene's July 2003 San Juan Trip Woodworking ]

The thing about having a COVID denier emailing regularly is, wow, neither "MD" nor a post at a prestigious university is any indicator of quality.

[ related topics: Education ]

The sign gives clear instructions, but now it's all "Sir, you're no longer welcome in Home Goods."

[ related topics: Photography ]

Neighbor offered fresh Cascadia hops. Gonna boil up some water and carbonate it. About two and a half oz in that smaller right bowl, and half a grocery bag left to pluck.

[ related topics: Photography Beer ]

The Guardian — Readers reply: when and why did men stop wearing hats?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

[ related topics: Aviation Sports Guns Philosophy ]

Bwahahaha! Fake Banksy NFT sold through artist's website for £244k

Banksy's team did not respond to questions about how his site was compromised but said: "The artist Banksy has not created any NFT artworks."

[ related topics: Current Events Monty Python Art & Culture ]

So both iCloud and Google Drive have just completely doubled down on the user-hostile extortion UX, huh?

I mean, it makes sense that `nil != NSNull`, but 🤬

Fantastic Twitter thread about Hyundai's "Journey Through Santa Cruz" four-minute bit of pro-automobile propaganda, exposing all the ways that cars make our environment so much less pleasant. Especially worth it if you know the area.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Nature and environment Automobiles ]

JFC

[ related topics: Photography ]